"We were coming down the stairwell, we got to the water fountains and it just hit us like a brick wall,” student Lisa George told WSB-TV. "We started stumbling around, we couldn't see. I was choking, my friend was choking. One of my friends who was already outside pulled me out the door."

Security cameras inside the school, located 20 miles west of Atlanta, caught the students spraying pepper spray or mace inside a downstairs hallway. The pepper spray forced some 250 students to evacuate from the school.

"We had a few that had asthma and some issues, so they wanted to talk to an EMT," Principal Tim Scott told WSB-TV.

Emergency medical technicians treated pepper spray victims. Firefighters cleared the Banks building, and the school used fans to disperse the chemical from the building. Classes resumed by 11 a.m. local time, school officials said.

"I'd a whole lot rather be safe than sorry when I'm dealing with our young people because safety comes first," Scott told WSB-TV.